


storyteller

by kyeoesc



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Photographer, College, Cute, Fluff, Literature major Kang Yeosang, M/M, Photographer Jung Wooyoung, Romance, Slice of Life, Students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23769853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyeoesc/pseuds/kyeoesc
Summary: 'Jung Wooyoung doesn’t just take pictures,' Yeosang thought to himself. 'He tells stories.'
Relationships: Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang
Comments: 5
Kudos: 68





	storyteller

The spring semester of his freshman year, Yeosang found himself in an exhibition by the first year students of the School of Art & Design. He didn’t feel good being there at the time - in his mind he was worrying about the papers he needed to write and the quizes he needed to study for - but when San insisted that Yeosang should take a break (“Your eyes are gonna pop out of their sockets if you don’t leave that Macbook some time soon”) he digressed. So instead of staring at a screen he stared at artworks, hung in a congested manner on the white walls of the unknown gallery just off of the campus's main road. The Literature major knew a thing or two about appreciating the abstract, but juggling his core subjects and electives had proven to pull the passion out of him. He looked at the artworks with blank stares, skimming through the artist statements and leaving as soon as he lost interest. A part of him whispered judgements at the words strung together in an effort to explain ideas that seemed premature. Language is not a skill that everyone has, he mused to himself.

Between crackers and cheese and fruit punch Yeosang smiled as San talked to his friend who had a couple of pieces up. Apparently the exhibition was a big deal and some of these students might even land themselves a scholarship from the school. Yeosang’s eyes skimmed through the works again, trying to look for something that he would deem worthy of a scholarship. Potential. How do these judges decide if someone has it? he wondered. His eyes landed on a small corner where a divider was brought in to accommodate more pieces. Three pieces of luster paper were rubber cemented on one long piece of black board. Yeosang decided to walk slowly towards the pieces, reading the artist's name and statement when he got closer.

_Jung Wooyoung_

_“When the Sun Says Goodbye”_

_These pieces were taken in my hometown when I was hanging out with my childhood friends. We do not know what we are doing, but the night was beautiful and filled with love. A moment captured in time is always precious._

Yeosang smirked at the statement. He knew this wouldn’t win Jung Wooyoung a scholarship - relatively speaking, the other artists had more complex ideas and put in more effort than he did for these - but it certainly won Yeosang’s attention. He stared at the pieces for a long time. The first piece was just the dark blue sky tinted with a slight orange, streetlights lit up, and long lines of light made by car headlights and a slow shutter speed. The second was a silhouette of two people, one closer to the photographer and the other further away. It looked like they both had their backs facing the photographer, their shoulders wide and sloping downwards. The blue sky that they were staring at had orange peeking out of faraway trees, its leaves just small specks of black from this distance. The third was the view of blue tinted hands resting on a pair of knees and holding a lit cigarette, the lines of the hands blurry, moving as the shot was taken. The cigarette was morphed unidentifiable if not for the orange light that came out of one end, and the knees were perfectly still. Yeosang peeked at thin traces of smoke, but he wondered if he was just making things up. Yeosang imagined where the hand would lead after the shot was taken. Did the hand reach for the photographer? Was the smoker taking another drag? It was a simple shot but it told so many stories. Yeosang’s mind wandered to a different place until San tapped his shoulder and told him that they were leaving for pizza.

Yeosang had the photographer’s name inscribed on his brain - Jung Wooyoung. Yeosang didn’t know much about photography but this guy is definitely his favorite now. With every exhibition that he passed by he would check the name. If it wasn’t Jung Wooyoung he wasn’t interested. The following semester he got lucky. Yeosang had to meet a professor in the School of Art & Design building, and as he waited outside the professor’s office his eyes wandered to the showcased students’ works. There were two exhibition galleries on the main floor of the building, showcasing bigger art projects. One of them was a Textile Design students’ exhibition, bits of cloth stitched together and dressed onto a dozen mannequins that stood eerily in the middle of the gallery, the walls filled with sketches and artist statements. The other gallery was filled with paintings; canvases bigger than Yeosang himself hung on the white walls. He looked away. There weren’t any photography pieces there. 

Yeosang then looked at the bulletin boards on the walls. Except, they weren’t bulletin boards, but more student works. A brief wave of admiration at the art school’s effort of showcasing as many pieces as they could went through Yeosang’s brain. _Jackpot_ , Yeosang thought to himself. _Photography pieces._ He skimmed the photographs. On a letter sized paper printed “Photography I” , and the works were all in black and white, so Yeosang assumed it was an entry level class. One caught his attention; it was a shot taken from the back of an old brick building, the old rusted stairs on its side in the shot, onlooking a parking lot half filled with cars. The sky was dark but the buildings and cars were visible under the streetlights. Mist surrounded the building, almost consuming it, then fell short as it escaped and thinned out into the dark sky. Yeosang’s eyes sparked. The work was labeled “Jung Wooyoung”. _He did it again,_ Yeosang thought, almost smiling to himself.

Since then every few weeks he made an effort to go to the art building to see if there were any new pieces by Jung Wooyoung. There was only one more batch at the end of that semester. The semesters that followed, the works put up by Jung Wooyoung slowed. There were only frequent updates from the entry level classes, but of course Jung Wooyoung would have moved on to higher level classes since. Yeosang sometimes scared himself by wondering if Jung Wooyoung dropped out. However, about a year after he first discovered his works, the student photographer's piece was printed in the size of a poster, making his first solo debut on the board, and one of his more colorful works that Yeosang had seen.

It was a simple photograph of a construction worker sitting on a bench at the train station. He looked into the distance, leaving his side profile in view, still wearing his construction hat and reflective vest, a half eaten sandwich in hand. At first glance it looked like an everyday scene but Yeosang realized that there was no construction happening around the man. The floor of the station was almost speckless, and the man sat right in the middle of the bench, the symmetry and cleanliness contrasting to the dirt and grit on his hat, vest, and boots. Yeosang was mesmerized.

 _Jung Wooyoung doesn’t just take pictures,_ Yeosang thought to himself. _He tells stories._

Yeosang found inspiration through Jung Wooyoung’s works. Yeosang too was a storyteller. He wrote short stories that he only shared on his blog, and some were sparked by the student photographer’s works. He didn’t tell anyone this, of course. Jung Wooyoung would be his secret crush, and he planned to keep it secret until he graduated and the time after. 

It was his final semester; Yeosang is now a graduating senior. He had just submitted his thesis project that evening. He wanted to go find solace in the streets he had roamed for four years. A train of memories passed his thoughts with every corner that he turned. he found himself walking towards the gallery where he first discovered Jung Wooyoung. he looked at himself in the reflection of the big window, a birthmark on his temple, his eyebrows sloped inwards, his thin lips closed tight. He saw the contrast between his shaggy brown hair and grey sweater with the crazy hairstyles and blazer wearing students inside. There was an exhibition opening, and he slipped in, ignoring the fact that he clearly did not fit in. He walked around and found out that it was a photography class exhibition. Within minutes, he noticed the glances thrown at him. he had caught more attention than he intended. Not making eye contact, he planned to look for Jung Wooyoung’s pieces and leave as soon as he saw them.

Yeosang finally found one corner that screamed Jung Wooyoung; the pieces were all in different sizes and orientations but ratioed the same. They were arranged on the white wall sporadically, the bigger pieces in the center, surrounded by smaller pieces, then even smaller as it spreads out further. Yeosang was just enjoying the arrangement at first, then went closer to observe each piece. The works were all at a lower saturation, and many with slow shutter speeds, lines making movement or dark night skies contrasted with bright specks of light. Some featured the sky, some featured faceless figures. One of the bigger pieces caught Yeosang’s eyes with familiarity. It was of a close up of a person’s left profile, looking out into a distance. You could only see the person’s neck up, his eyes brown in reflection of the sun, his lips thin and closed tight, turned downwards. his brown locks were kept behind his ears, revealing something unmistakable that Yeosang had seen his entire life - a reddish birthmark on his left temple, just above his cheekbone.

Yeosang felt blood rush to his face. Jung Wooyoung took a picture of him? When was this? Was it when he was studying at the library? Yeosang admitted that it raised hairs on his neck but maybe Jung Wooyoung too didn’t know that the subject in the picture would be seeing this piece. But Jung Wooyoung, his secret crush, took a picture of him? That means that they were in the same vicinity at one point of time, and Yeosang didn’t even know it. His eyes fluttered away from the piece, trying to distract himself. So what if he’s now part of Jung Wooyoung’s works? It doesn’t matter because Yeosang is no one in Jung Wooyoung’s world. Yeosang soon found that that might not be true, as he found himself in the smaller pieces as well. One was of him pushing his hair back as he looked down (Yeosang is now convinced that this was taken at the library while he was writing on his laptop in one of the cubicles) and another that didn’t show his face, just the back of his head as he turned the other way, his left hand holding a cup of coffee. Both had a similar style of the subject making movement in a single shot, lines being blurred by the slow shutter speed. Even though the subject was too familiar for Yeosang’s comfort, he still admired Jung Wooyoung’s ability to make the normal look extraordinary.

Yeosang walked away from the corner. It was a bit of an overwhelming discovery for the night, and he felt a sudden need to take a nap, not wanting to entertain his river of thoughts. On his way to the entrance a man stopped him. Yeosang looked at the man - it was a familiar face. The man with the lopsided eyes and beauty mark under his left eye, his hair dyed a soft lilac purple. He usually sat in a cubicle in the same area as where Yeosang would do his work in the library. They only talked once, when Yeosang almost left his phone cable at his cubicle, but they saw each other often. The man grinned awkwardly.

“Hi,” he started.

“Hey,” Yeosang replied, slightly confused. “What’s up?”

“Not much. What are you doing here?”

“I was just looking around,” Yeosang chuckled airily, trying to hide his nerves. “What about you?”

“I uh, have pieces up for this exhibition,” the man replied, shifting his weight on his other leg.

“You’re a photographer?” Yeosang asked. “Cool. Which one’s are your works?”

“That one,” the man replied, looking over Yeosang’s shoulder. Yeosang turned and saw that the man was talking about the pieces that he had just observed. Yeosang didn’t want to look back at the other, but the man - Jung Wooyoung, his secret crush - came forward to look at Yeosang in the eyes. He offered his hand for a handshake, smiling sweetly. “I’m Jung Wooyoung.”

Yeosang reached out hesitantly. “Kang Yeosang.”


End file.
